


Emil Västerström: Trans-Dimensional Traveler

by fairytal3catcher



Series: Emil Västerström: Trans-Dimensional Traveler [2]
Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Plague, Alternative Dimensions, Gen, M/M, Parallel Realities, Slow Burn, anyway, aus in an au, bear with me, liminal spaces, slightly ooc? who knows?, so much AU, strange stuff, tags will update as fic updates, tons of different worlds and realities, unreality, writer sucks at writing relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9021430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairytal3catcher/pseuds/fairytal3catcher
Summary: After seeing things he couldn't begin to explain at a grocery store in the middle of the night, Emil's life spirals into a wild ride full of adventure, friendship, and so much more.(On hiatus until I can gather the courage to update)





	1. 2.

**Author's Note:**

> So... I know I said "I might make a short series out of this and post some chapters~" around four months ago... Then I didn't post anything and I got carried away and it turned into a goliath of a project I've literally been working on since I posted that oneshot in August. I woooould've posted the chapters as I wrote them, but after taking a creative writing workshop, I realized that if I wanted this to be the best story I could make it, I should try writing the whole thing first and then do the editing on the whole work. I think it worked!
> 
> Anyway, if you haven't read the oneshot, I highly recommend you read that first. You probably /could/ read this without reading the first part, but some things might not make as much sense and it could take you longer to catch on. This is the first chaptered fic I'm posting on AO3, so any comments or suggestions are welcome! 
> 
> I hope you guys'll like this story (and even if no one does, it's all good~).

Life went on strangely after the grocery store incident. 

Mostly out of curiosity (was it a dream or was it real?  He didn’t know how much of that was imagined and how much of it was reality), he found himself doing his grocery shopping in the middle of the night.  Sometimes, he would have a trip that made him wonder further about his sanity.  Most times, everything just felt unreal, even if there was nothing he could see with his own eyes to validate that feeling.  The cashier stopped staring at him after the third time he showed up and explained that sometimes, reality gets a little weird in places like markets in the middle of the night. 

Of course, that didn’t exactly explain why the cashier stared through him like he was nothing, robotically going through the motions of ringing up bread and fifteen packages of super noodles as if no one was there at all.

Things like this weren’t limited to the grocery store, however.  He found reality fleeting when he stood in empty stairwells or at playgrounds during the night.  There were so many places that felt real, but there was that handful of strange locations at strange times that made him feel like he was caught somewhere between planes of reality.  When he would lie awake at night, remembering the horrible creature from the freezer aisle, he wondered if all of these places were here all along and he stumbled into it, or if he’d done something wrong.  Turned the wrong corner, made a wrong choice, or maybe was being tried for some treason he couldn’t name.

Aside from his hyperawareness of the strange places around him, other interesting things happened.  The fireball he’d met in a wildly unconventional way was actually involved with a part of his school he didn't know existed.  She mostly spent her time in the army office convincing people to join some kind of pre-military program, apparently.  He’d run into her when he took a wrong turn after another streak of sleepless nights spent studying.  There was no apology or anything, just a punch to the arm, telling him that he was pretty cool after a small interaction, and an invitation to meet up with her at a certain bar the next night, which he inevitably forgot about.

A week later, while he was leaving the library, he saw a guy sitting on a short pillar of sorts, completely still.  He had a strange feeling, like maybe the person had fallen asleep and needed to be woken up, so he quietly approached the person and noticed how familiar he was.  The ash blonde hair, the prominent cheekbones... he was reminded intensely of the confused guy from that night at the store. 

Only now, he was in normal street clothes.  Casual shoes, jeans, a T-shirt and a yellow jacket, not the fur cloak and old-timey rags.  His hair was still rough, but at least he didn’t look like he was homeless or back from a wild night. 

Emil was standing in front of him and started to reach out, but stopped as the guy opened his eyes.  For a moment, he wondered if he was caught in another one of those strange in-betweens.  This cute guy had these _intense_ eyes which almost seemed to burn blue--nothing in that moment felt particularly real.  His heart hammered in his chest and he stood silent until the guy’s eyes moved down to his outstretched hand.  He quickly pulled it back.  “Uh, sorry, I was just worried you’d fallen asleep and didn’t want you to fall down or anything.”

Unlike in the market, he felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest from anticipation.  This guy was looking at him with something akin to annoyance, not confusion.  It felt like a first impression gone horribly wrong, which just made him want to run.  However useful it would’ve been to just leave and not worry about this anymore, he couldn’t bring himself to until everything was made right.

The strange guy’s intense stare gave way to an indifferent glance.  “Mrph.”

Before he knew what he was doing, he spoke up again.  “Have we met before?”

“Only once.  In a dream.”

Emil blinked.  The words were pretty heavily accented, which was a stark contrast to the last meeting.  The voice was the same, but it threw him off.  There was also the fact that that _could_ be flirting.  “In a dream?” he asked, voice trailing off.  A sudden realization came.  “Wait, was that thing in the supermarket a dream?”

“Maybe,” the guy hummed.  “For one of us.”

He wanted to ask something, but decided against it.  This was getting too weird.

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Enter my dream.”

Emil blushed.  Was that a pickup line?  “I... I didn’t...?  Not on purpose, anyway.”

The guy nodded and closed his eyes again.  “Okay.”

“Well...  If everything’s alright, then I guess I’ll be on my way.”  He started to turn to leave, then felt a hand on his shoulder and stopped.  When he turned back around, he saw the guy sliding off the pillar and moving to stand in front of him. 

“What’s your name?”

“Uh, it’s Emil.  ...Why?”

“You said it was a grocery store that night.  Could you take me there?”

“...Sure.  But it’s only about eight, the grocery store doesn’t get weird until around midnight.”

“Weird?”

He laughed a little, nervously.  “Yeah, um.  ...So this weird thing happens sometimes.  I go somewhere like that and things feel weird, like I’m only kind-of there.  Or...  God, this sounds insane, sometimes it seems like reality isn’t all there.”

“Not too insane.”

“It might all be in my head, though, I don’t know.”

“Hmm.”

“Did you want to go tonight?  Did you need something?  I _did_ need to pick some groceries up...”

The guy sighed but didn’t say anything.  He wondered if there was going to be any response.  Did he say something wrong... or?  “If you don’t mind.”

“Uh--no.  I don't mind at all.  Where do you want to meet?”

“Where do you live?”

He choked on his own breath.  Was this guy _serious_?  “...How about we meet at the supermarket parking lot?” he offered, trying to make his voice not shake.  “It’s on Ninth, near Park Street.”

“Alright.”

“Twelve thirty.”

The guy nodded and turned to walk into the library.  Emil hesitated before he turned back away from the building to start toward a bus stop.  The day had quickly turned to night and all of his favorite shortcuts to the campus’s bus stop were abandoned.  He walked along the side of a building and felt that disconnect he was growing familiar with.  Instead of feeling strangely at peace, he started to feel comfortable.  It was almost like passing through these planes was more appealing than the “real” world.

That thought made it strange again.

 

~*~

 

Emil decided that it would probably be best to show up early to meet his new acquaintance (whose name he _totally_ didn’t forget to ask for).  Although the thought that he needed to study was nagging in the back of his head, he ignored it.  Grocery shopping was kind of important and anyway, he was going to get to spend some time with that cute guy.  For a moment on his walk over, he wondered if it would all be for nothing.   He’d never taken someone with him to these strange places and he didn’t even know if all of this was in his head or not.

Maybe he really _was_ losing his mind.

Well, if he was losing his mind, this guy was probably losing his, too.  What were the odds of seeing this person in the supermarket and finding him again, only for him to say they'd met before?  And why would this person want to seek out something surreal like this with a stranger like him?  At least if it didn’t work, he wasn’t the only one who was missing a screw or two. 

However easy it was to believe this, his stomach was still in knots.  He wanted this person to like him and all of his insecurities were coming out to haunt him.  What if he looked stupid?  What if this person, who might be just as crazy as him, thought he was even more insane after seeing a normal grocery store?  What if this trip failed horribly?  Emil shook his head, as if that could throw away all his anxious thoughts.  What if it went _right_?  What if they became friends?  Or more?  It couldn’t _all_ go bad.

With five minutes to spare, he made it to the store’s parking lot and looked around.  No familiar stranger in sight.  ...In fact, there wasn’t even one car in the lot.  The neon on the sign that read “24 hour” blinked and flickered, reminding him of what he already knew.  It wasn’t exactly wise to be standing around in an empty parking lot in the middle of the night, so he slumped up against the side of the adjacent building and took inventory of the parking lot.  There were tons of cracks in the pavement and a strange weed that was dying in one of them, as well as garbage strewn about.  The streetlights around the lot were flickering if they worked at all, and plenty of them were littered with graffiti. 

For some reason, he felt inclined to check it out, but before he could, he felt someone grab his shoulder.  With lightning speed, he turned on his heel and was ready to fight.  Or maybe cry.  He didn’t know how he was going to react to someone mugging him quite yet.  That reaction never had reason to come out before.  Standing in front of him was the guy he’d been waiting for.  That didn’t stop the pounding in his chest, though.  “Holy shit, are you trying to give me a heart attack?” he nearly yelled.

His guest recoiled and backed off.  “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“It’s... it’s okay.  Just, _please_ don’t do that again.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”  He took a second to do a couple deep breaths and calm down, then spoke.  “Alright.  So this is the place.”

“It’s so... ordinary,” the stranger commented, looking perplexed.

“I know, right?”  Emil eyed the store, then turned back to the stranger.  “I don’t know how it’ll work since there’s two of us and all, but at this hour, things get weird.  You might be able to see it.”

“Let’s go.”

Strange response.  Alright enough.  He started walking to the front doors and the stranger trailed behind.  “I forgot to ask, what’s your name?”

“Lalli.”

“That’s interesting,” he mused.  “Never heard that name before.”

Lalli didn’t comment.  Emil was starting to think that the guy either didn’t like him or really wasn’t that big on talking.  Instead of introducing the place as he walked in, he kept quiet and only guided his companion.  He grabbed a hand basket and looked up to see the same cashier staring at him—or maybe he was staring at Lalli.  He didn’t know.  He checked the line of sight and saw that yes, the cashier was definitely staring at Lalli and Lalli was staring back, seemingly just as emptily.  ...Maybe Lalli, too, was a hallucination. 

“That guy’s weird.”

“That’s what I thought, too.”

“He’s real.”

“...Yes?”  What kind of a comment was that?

“Hmm.”

Emil took a breath and turned back toward the rest of the store.  As he walked to the bread aisle, that familiar feeling started to fall over him again.  Unreality was washing over him and the only thing he knew for sure was real was Lalli, whose footsteps clearly sounded from behind him.  When they got most of the way there, the lights seemed to flicker more and become dim when they would turn back on.  When he looked behind him, the lighting issue seemed to be solved, but when turned back ahead, things just grew grimmer.

“I don’t like this,” Lalli murmured. 

“Usually it’s fine,” he lied.  The first time the lights had started to fail him, the Lovecraftian creature from hell was slithering past him and gave him nightmares for weeks.  The lights went out again another time, too.  He feared for his life, but all that came was a box dropping from the shelf behind him.  This time, although a little nervously, he walked straight to where he needed to go, not waiting for doubt to fill his mind.

Upon turning the corner to the aisle, the lights went out.  In an instant, Lalli was grabbing onto his sleeve and starting to pull him away.  Just as quickly as the lights had gone out, though, they turned on and Lalli stopped tugging.  He looked concerned, but Emil just smiled, trying to convey that there probably wasn’t anything to be worried about.  His companion didn’t look all that convinced, but let go of his sleeve.  He didn’t even feel it.  He started to wonder if he was losing his mind, but this time, the thought didn’t cease. 

They walked into the bread aisle and things were... strange.  There were tons of people at the deli and picking up certain breads and talking in lots of different languages he couldn’t understand.  Some shifted down the aisle instead of walking, some walked right through displays, and some vanished.  He stood still for a moment, trying to make sense of the sight in front of him.  This was new.  He looked over to Lalli, who looked almost as confused as he felt.

“...Is this real?”

“I don’t know.  I don’t think so,” Emil answered, walking over to the bread and picking up a half loaf.

Lalli pressed his lips a little and also picked up a half loaf.  He couldn’t quite read his expression, and it made him nervous.  He imagined it wasn’t exactly _good_ , but it couldn’t be too bad, right?  ...Right?  He shook his head, then turned back to the aisle and saw that everyone else had vanished.  It was silent again.  For some reason, he felt as though he was floating.  When he looked down at his feet, he saw them still planted to the ground.  Looking at the ground, he tested gravity, then confirmed that yes, he was still walking on tiles, not floating.  However real that experiment was, it didn’t stop the feeling.

Upon leaving the aisle, the quiet store music started to play again.  It was another one of those songs you’d only hear at a grocery store, but he didn’t sing along.  Usually, he just _knew_ the words even if he didn’t know the song, but since this grocery trip was off to a bad start, he didn’t want to find he was singing something in another language and question his sanity further. 

The usual strange things occurred as Lalli and he picked up various items.  Some things fell from shelves, some areas of the store were colder than others, strange people were walking up and down the same aisles, and some items were just plain _weird_.  Emil reached for one of those Cyrillic cereal boxes but it faded away before he could grab it, and once when he tried to add a bottle of juice to his basket, it fell straight through the netting and shattered on the floor.  At least the super noodles were fine and entirely real.  That was most of what he needed, really.  The super noodles and he and Lalli were real, and if nothing else, that was enough.

Emil checked out first and his usual cashier did that thing again where he looked right through him, staring into space.  It made him extremely uncomfortable, but he didn’t say anything about it.  In fact, he didn’t say anything at all.  The cashier didn’t even speak to him, so he just silently put the money in the guy’s hand, took the receipt, and walked to the wall to wait for Lalli. 

That’s when things got stranger than they already were.  The cashier greeted Lalli and had a _conversation_ with him, even though Lalli clearly wasn’t much for words.  Lalli looked around as the cashier checked out the items and started to look unsettled, as opposed to his usual stoic expression.  The cashier handed him his bags and told him to have a good night, and Lalli walked over to the wall, looking around carefully.  “Emil?” he asked.

Emil raised a hand, trying to signal that he was practically _right_ in front of him, but when he tried to speak, it was like he hadn’t made any noise at all.  Lalli searched around the wall and the cashier looked at him confusedly.  “...Are you alright?”

“The person I was just with; did you see them?”

The cashier looked confused.  “You were alone.”

Emil’s eyes grew wide.  Oh no.  Oh no, no, no, no.  This was one hell of a hallucination and he was _not_ enjoying it at all.  ...Not to say he _ever_ enjoyed these strange visions, but this one was far less fun than the other ones.  He pushed himself off the wall and started to walk over, still feeling almost like he was floating.  Didn’t feelings like this usually pass at the register?  Lalli still was looking for him, then frowned.  “Something’s weird about this place.”

“I can’t say I disagree.  Maybe your friend is outside and I just didn’t catch them.”

“...Maybe.” 

He tried to tell Lalli that he was there, that that “something” weird was happening to him right then and there, but it didn’t work.  Much to his horror, when he tried to put his hand on his companion’s shoulder, his entire _hand_ went through.  It felt really, _really_ weird and Lalli shivered.  Emil stared at his hands in terror, wondering what on earth happened to them, then blinked as hard as he could.  Usually blinking solved things, right?  He counted to three, then opened his eyes and saw the same scene playing out in front of him.  No one was seeing him.

“Have a good evening,” the cashier repeated to Lalli, who started rushing out of the store.  Emil barely managed to keep up, but when he passed through the doors, it didn’t matter.  Lalli was walking around the building, yelling his name and searching around, then stopped when he saw his guide run out of the sliding doors.

“What was that!” Lalli yelled, clearly not amused.

“I don’t know!”

“You don’t _prank_ people when we go to a place like _that_!”   

Emil put his hands up, as if it could prove his innocence.  “One minute I was with you and the next, it was like I stopped existing!”

“How does that work!”

“I don’t know!  I didn’t mean to!”

Lalli took a deep breath, clearly trying to calm down.  He still looked incredibly wound up.  “So you _were_ there?”

“Yes!  I was standing up against the wall.  I tried to touch you, but my hand—“ he looked down at them, then shivered.  “It went right through you.  You shivered and I...  Oh god.  This has never happened before, what’s happening to me?”

Lalli’s expression was hard to place.   Perhaps it was curiosity, maybe it was speculation.  Maybe Emil had finally completely lost it and Lalli playing along was a false ruse. 

“You saw it too, didn’t you?  All the things in that store?”

“Yes.”

“What’s happening to me?” he asked again, more frantic.  “This keeps happening and I think it's getting worse and—“

“You should calm down.  Panicking isn’t going to fix this.”

“What _is_?  Do you have any clue what’s going on?”

Lalli sighed.  “Not exactly.  I think what happened was when you interacted with a liminal space like this,” he said, gesturing to the store, “it made something happen.  Did you do anything else other than talk to me that one time?”

Emil tried to think.  “I... I sang along to a song that looped weird, and I witnessed something... terrifying.  Another time, I interacted with someone who disappeared—“

“What did you witness?”

His stomach sank.  “The lights got all weird, like they did in the bread section, and then I saw this _thing_.  It looked like a person, but completely wrong and horrifying.  I could hardly recognize it.”

Lalli hummed.

“Do you know what it was?” he asked after a moment.

“No.  They don’t exist in our world.”

“I know that much.”

“A lot of the things that I saw tonight... I don’t think they’re from our world.  Either that, or they seem to be realities layered in strange ways.  You disappearing _shouldn’t_ have happened.”

“Why did it?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe you accidentally walked into one of the planes instead of just seeing it, or maybe you went into a small pocket dimension.”

All he could think of was how screwed he was.  One day, he was fine.  All these strange places didn’t matter, he hardly ever encountered them, and now he was falling in between realities or dimensions or _whatever_.  What would someone tell his aunt and uncle if he went missing?  What if he was never able to leave or something?  What if he got caught in some reality and something killed him?  Or what if something like that creature left its reality because of him?  Any anxiety that could possibly surface from this was making its way out.  His heart was racing.  “I’m losing my mind.  I’m losing my mind _and_ I’m getting sucked into some cosmic horror story.”

Lalli rolled his eyes.  “If you’re losing your mind, I lost mine, too.  You might have messed something up, but I doubt it will end your life.”

“How do _you_ know?”

“It’s a long story.”

Yeah.  Okay.  Nope.  Emil smiled a little and wanted to cry.  This guy was also completely insane, maybe even more than he was, but for a different reason.  This couldn’t be good and he’d probably mess things up worse by getting tangled up with Lalli.  ...But on the other hand, he was literally the only person in this world he had confessed this to and maybe the only person who could help him.  Suddenly, the open parking lot felt small and constraining.  He exhaled and started walking out of the lot, motioning for Lalli to follow.  “After everything I’ve seen the last few weeks, I think I might just want to listen.”


	2. 3.

Emil spent most of that night awake, staring at the ceiling and the shadows cast from the streetlights outside.  Sometimes, he’d raise his hands and stare at them, especially the one that had phased through Lalli.  They felt real.  They touched each other and his sheets and his hair and didn’t phase through, but he couldn’t forget the feeling of them falling through something.  When he thought of this, he worried about it happening and the possibility of not being able to touch anything else ever again.  The thought kept his mind too occupied to rest.

At some point, he was able to fall asleep.  The dreams were far too much like reality to be comfortable, though.  Between thinking that he’d woken up to not exist at all and having a nightmare of the creature from the freezer aisle noticing him, the sleep he’d managed hardly made him feel rested.  When he woke up, he expected to find the unreal feeling sweeping him over again but was relieved to feel his feet touch the floor and consequences of not sleeping baring down on him.

Life kept up like this for weeks.  He stopped going to places that seemed like they could lead to other realities and continued having horrifying nightmares.  When he’d wake up, he’d find everything around him entirely real and tangible, but he couldn’t escape the nagging fear that maybe, just maybe, nothing was.  He spent hours upon hours worrying until he couldn’t think of anything more to worry about, then he'd worry some more.

With time, things got easier, though.  New habits formed and the nightmares started to fade into strange, but tolerable dreams.  He feared less and less, especially with how few reminders there were—after that final night, he hadn’t seen Lalli again and the grocery store felt so much more... real in the daylight.  By the time the semester was drawing to a close, he considered that maybe it was all just a weird dream, or perhaps that he had imagined it, or something else to that effect.  None of it was actually _real_.  Some of the situations he had been in were just dangerous was all.  It’s not smart for people to walk down alleys at night, nor is it wise to be alone at four in the morning in strange places. 

Anyway, come finals week, after things had finally fallen back on the right track, the universe seemed to have some kind of vendetta out for him.  

Rationally, the library should be full on finals week.  With all the essays being cranked out and last minute studying, it would only make sense that students would be battling to the death for desk space and couches to nap on.  However, that seemed to be the case for the ground floor and maybe two others.  Whether it was because the sixth floor had closed without him knowing or some general, unspoken displeasure with being in the stacks in the middle of the night, Emil did not know for sure. 

What he did know was that tapping his pen echoed in a haunting way, the lights were on in some places and off in others, and with every passing minute, things felt more and more off.  Nevertheless, he stayed at his desk and kept trying to remember formulae and certain compounds for his exams the next morning, refusing to leave until he had memorized at least a passing grade’s worth of information.  Every so often, he would hear the creak of a vent or see the flicker of a light, but he ignored it. 

As simple as it could be to ignore all of the small things, by the time he’d finished reviewing another stack of note cards, it was getting hard not to recall the sinking feeling of reality falling in on itself.  He closed his eyes for a moment and willed for it to pass along with the exhaustion, but it didn’t subside.  He grabbed his cup of lukewarm coffee and took a swig.  No time for sleep, no time for anxiety.  He was running _out_ of time.  The first exam was in seven hours.  No time for anything except cramming.  Emil put his headphones in and turned up the volume enough to keep him focused and the strange rattling of the air vents or pipes far from his periphery of thought.

Once he’d made another run through his stack of chemistry note cards, he moved back to the calculus, then repeated the process, only taking a break here or there to read his cheat sheet on vocabulary and concepts.  It was nearing three in the morning and he was so tired he was starting to take micro-sleeps every few minutes.  Perhaps he was right in thinking that that was no condition to study in.  Or not.  Right or wrong, he was definitely heading downstairs to nap on one of those relatively comfy chairs.  Yes, there were chairs on this floor, but he felt slightly too keyed up to do that, for whatever reason.

Lethargically, he bundled up his note cards and shoved his supplies in his backpack, then pulled out his headphones and put those in the bag, too.  Before he decided to leave, he set a short alarm so he could get back to studying soon and placed the phone in his pocket.  A deep breath.  He pulled out his chair and stood up, grabbing his bag and turning around, finally noticing how dark it really was on this floor.  Most of the lights were out, aside from the one over the desks he was sitting at.  The floor had definitely closed without him knowing, he figured. 

He pushed the chair in and started to walk toward the elevators as that sinking feeling swept over him.  The nervous part of his brain was yelling ‘danger, danger,’ because something about this felt wrong in the same way it had in so many memories.  Or daydreams.  Or nightmares.  He, himself, though?  He was trying to believe there was no reason to fear.  It was just the library, nothing scary about that.  Just a little darker than it was earlier, just a little quieter.  He made it to the elevator and pushed the down button, but it didn’t glow.  A single light illuminated the area, hanging over a random aisle behind him and flickering dimly as Emil pushed the button again and again.  His head started to feel like it was filling up with white noise.  Everything about this put him on edge. 

It was no use.  The elevators weren’t working.  He’d have to find the stairs. 

Something rattled in the distance.

Emil’s heart was starting to beat hard enough for him to feel it.  He took a deep breath and slowly turned around.  The scene behind him was the same as it was when he’d walked over this way.  There was a small computer lab with all the computers turned off, shelves and shelves of books, and one flickering light on an aisle to the right.  The rattling continued to the left where things seemed darkest.  Slowly, he pulled his phone out and turned on the flashlight, then moved it around the room, noticing the way the beam wavered.  “Is... is anyone here?” he asked in a quiet voice.

No answer.  His stomach was twisting in uncomfortable ways.  He knew he was right there, right then, but he didn’t feel like he was.  And while he knew he _should_ be alone, he didn’t _feel_ alone.  It felt like something was near, and perhaps that that something was watching him.  He swallowed and tried to convince himself that it was just some paranoia.  That kind of stuff comes with not sleeping, right?  When was the last time he _did_ sleep?  The thought calmed him a little as he yawned.  Too long ago.  It was probably that, then.

Emil cautiously walked toward the flickering light, hoping to find a stairwell.  He’d never taken the stairs to this floor before.  In fact, he didn’t know where they would even _be_ —he’d never once passed any kind of staircase entrance or door that read “stairway” on this floor.  His guess of where it was might be as good as someone who’d never been there at all.  Unfortunately for him, this was the exact last time he wanted to be wondering where the stairs were and there was nothing he could do to fix it.  As he walked past the aisle with the flickering light, he started to hear the rattling come from the area by the elevator.

Maybe rattling was the wrong word.  There wasn’t any particular word he could put to the noise, though.  It sounded like footsteps, except wrong.  It sounded like there was breathing, but that was wrong, too.  Whatever the sound was, it wasn’t something he had a lot of experience with and the fact whatever it was wouldn’t answer him made him feel more and more like he needed to flee, and fast.  His palms were growing sweaty and his breathing uneven.  He tried to tell himself that it was just something in the pipes, but that didn’t satisfy his fears.  Nothing seemed to.

The next light was toward the other end of the library, so the space by the back wall was fairly dark.  The walls didn’t show anything that could help him find the stairs, nor any strange, helpful doors, or the stairs themselves.  As he made it near the back of the library, he heard a faint dripping, almost like a leak.  The closer he got, the less he wanted to approach whatever it was.  From three shelves away, he started to hear labored breathing, squelching, and... maybe some kind of movement?  Whatever kind of animal was back there, he didn’t want to bother it. 

Without a second thought, he turned around, ready to head back toward the elevators and start searching a different area.  When his flashlight pointed up, though, his heart stopped.  Before he could even think, he turned it off and ran into one of the shelves.  He stopped breathing entirely and just barely suppressed a noise.  It was the same thing from the grocery store, except this time, it almost looked _worse_ , if that were possible.  There was blood glistening across its form and the mangled flesh was gnarly.  Maybe it did look that bad before and he just hadn’t realized.

A loud screech rang through the floor moments after he made it into his hardly-decent hiding place, making him flinch.  He shook as he heard the beast approaching and tried to make himself shrink or sink into the bookshelves around him.  It didn’t work.  When it seemed to come especially close, he sat completely still.  Wasn’t there some kind of animal that couldn’t see you if you sat completely still?  Might that be the case with whatever the hell this thing was? 

There was no time to run, so it was his best bet.  He kept his shallow, uneven breathing slow and a hand over his mouth, praying that he could keep himself quiet enough to pull this off.  Just as it crept to his aisle, he held his breath and tensed up, sitting completely still.

The creature stood at the entrance of the aisle for what felt like an hour.  Emil kept it in the very periphery of his vision, not turning his head to look at it for a moment, not moving his eyes in its direction.  Not for even a half a second did he breathe.  All that he did was let his heart beat because he couldn’t stop the pounding in his chest.  When it eventually decided move on, back to where the dripping sound was coming from, Emil let out a small breath, shook for only a brief moment, then forced himself to get it together again. 

Whatever that was, it was definitely going to come back at some point.  The library was too small of a place and honestly, Emil didn’t think he had the heart to sit silent for however long it would take for someone else to come and save the day.  He waited a minute to make sure that it wasn’t walking back, then stood up cautiously and as quietly as possible.  Once he was standing, though, he couldn’t seem to move again.  The idea of leaving made his chest hurt and his eye twitch.  A thought entered his head--that maybe moving was the last thing he should do.

He started to shake again, then made a conscious effort to stop.  Now was not the time.

Quietly, he made one small step toward the other end of the bookshelf, not wanting to cross the path the creature had used before.  Then, he made another step, hardly making any progress at all this time.  Then a normal stride, gently placing his foot on the tile.  It easily took three minutes for him to reach the end of the aisle, a task that would’ve taken less than ten seconds to do if he were walking normally.  His heart started to beat hard again as he leaned forward to look down the aisle way.  First, toward the direction the creature walked, which was just dark.  Then, behind him, which was slightly brighter on account of the one flickering light. 

His hands were shaking and he felt like he was going to be sick.  Thankfully, at the very least, nothing was there.  Honestly, if something had been, he didn't know if he would've been able to handle it.  Carefully, he took a step out of the aisle, making one quick look behind him to make sure nothing was there.  As he expected (or more pleaded for), all he saw was the relative safety of the bookshelf.  Another deep breath.  He slowly crept around the corner, heading toward the light.  Before crossing to the next shelf to hide behind, he checked the aisle, which was clear.  Okay, good start.

He slinked between the aisles, the anxiety starting to fade into simply heightened awareness by the time he was a couple of aisles away from the light.  When he finally made it to that aisle, he took a deep breath and sat down under the light.  It felt safer than the darkness and he would only be there for a moment, so why not?

Deciding it might be a good idea to try to call the library itself or maybe the cops, he pulled out his phone and started to dial the number he’d seen a million times on the back of his ID.  ...It was working fine until halfway through dialing, he noticed that the network was out.  His eyes started to water.  Of course it wouldn’t work.  The only time he _ever_ needed to be saved and his phone had no service.  That was his luck. 

He looked up, trying to distract himself so he wouldn’t lose it over such a mishap.  There were plenty of interesting books in this row, though they looked worn by time.  Golf books, a book about communication, another on film history, then one on plant biology...  He blinked and the tears fell down his cheeks.  This really wasn’t helping.  The light flickered again and for a moment, it took almost everything in him not to make any noise.  God, he didn’t want to be in the darkness.  That was the absolute last thing he ever wanted anymore.  He thought that if he ever made it out of this, that he would probably never go anywhere dark ever again as long as he lived.

With maybe five minutes, he managed to gain back some of his composure.  Enough so that he was willing to carry on searching for the stairs in near darkness as opposed to cry under a dying light.  He quietly stood up again, taking slow, shuddery breaths, hoping to calm down some more before he ventured out.  Just as he started to make his first step back toward the path he’d been taking, his phone started to buzz.  It took a second for him to register what was going on, then a loud alarm started to blare and echo.  His hand dove into his pocket to silence the phone, but instead of simply pressing the power button to shut it up, he pulled it out and it clattered to the floor.

A low groan sounded from the back of the library as he finally managed to turn it off with shaking fingers.  He stood absolutely still for ten whole seconds, awkwardly hunched over the floor where his phone lay, screen illuminating an “alarm disabled” message.  His chest was starting to hurt again.  With every thump of his heart made his fingers feel a little more numb and his body a little more weak.  The rattling he’d heard earlier was closer than he expected it to be—hadn’t it been at the back of the library?

Apparently not.  Apparently, it was maybe three aisles away, making horrifyingly disgusting noises as it loomed closer to where he was.  The only way he could escape would be to run the way he was heading in the first place, but even then, there was no guarantee that the stairs would be that way.  There was no guarantee that he was even on the right side of the _building_ to find the stairs.  It would just land him running for his life from whatever this was and however many things it was friends with.

He collapsed to the floor.  Perhaps it was his body needing relief from the tension, or maybe it was the exhaustion from a long night of studying and the stress of the last however long.  His fingers gripped his phone and he pulled the screen into his line of sight, noticing the network bar was still crossed out.  He put the phone in his pocket and tried to sit upright, then leaned against the shelf under the light, which was flickering much slower.  More light.

Well.  At least he’d get the privilege of seeing himself get murdered.

The groaning noise seemed to rest at the entrance to his current row, but he didn’t look up.  What was the point?  There was none.  He was cornered and nothing was going to change his bleak chances of making it out alive.  It was funny.  For all the terror he’d felt earlier with this monster lurking in the shadows, now all he could feel was relief.  It was about to be over.  The only regret he had was that he didn’t tell his aunt and uncle that he appreciated all their support and that he loved them.  Chemistry exams and city life and pipeline dreams could fade into obscurity now.  It didn’t matter anymore.

Without realizing he’d closed them, he opened his eyes.  Damn sleep deprivation.  He looked around and saw the creature still lying in wait at the end of the darker end of the row, not attacking for some reason.  He wanted to stare and be perplexed by its lack of murdering, but the sight of the creature made it impossible.  It wasn’t even the kind of horrifying you couldn’t look away from—it was the type you avoided looking at to retain your sanity.

He looked around to see what could be causing it to not attack him, but there was only the light above him.  That couldn’t be the _only_ thing stopping it... right?  Oh, whatever.  It was the only thing he had going for him and that’s all he cared to think of.  The creature was a little afraid of light and he was a little afraid of the dark, now.  What worked, worked. 

As easy as it was to give up, having the slight hope that the light could give him enough time to wait for sunrise made it increasingly harder.  He checked his phone every so often and the time would bring him closer and closer to the chance of getting out unscathed.  Hope made it harder.  The being lurking around, watching, was making him regress back to his panic and terror.  With every time the light flickered, Emil felt himself losing his grip on the situation a little more.  Once when the light flickered for a little too long and he saw an arm—or what might’ve been an arm—reaching for his face, he finally screamed. 

It took almost all the energy he had left and he slumped onto the ground, falling either asleep or unconscious.  It was hard to tell which.  All he knew was he finally awoke to pain and the sound of footsteps charging toward him, a flashlight glimmering through the places between the books, and the huffing of another person, far too tired or too out of shape from running.  He opened his eyes and stared at the end of the row, then into the light when it approached him.  He didn’t sigh in relief, nor did he get up from the ground.  He didn’t even blink.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!  
> Thanks for reading, and thanks for 43 views on the chapter I posted last week! ...Also, sorry this is a little late--I probably should've planned better. Whoops.  
> I kinda based this library's stacks setup after the library at my alma mater, but re-reading, I don't know if I made it very clear or not where everything was. Apologies! And speaking of alma maters, I'm probably visiting mine this week to meet up with some pals, so if there's no update by Saturday / early Sunday, I should have it posted as soon as I come back on Monday and pick up again from there.  
> Happy New Year!


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